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- [00:05]
Shemitah Basu
Good morning, it's Monday, July 14th. I'm Shemitah Basu, this is Apple News today. On today's show, questions about FEMA's response time in Texas, why a high profile murder case from the 2000s is back in the news. And Janik Sinner and Iga Swiatek win their first Wimbledon titles. But first, it's been a year since the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. It happened on July 13, 2024 at a campaign rally for the then candidate in Butler, Pennsylvania at 6:11pm While Trump addressed the crowd, 20 year old Thomas Crooks fired out at least eight rounds, killing one person and injuring others.
- [00:55]
Donald Trump
If you want to really see something that said, take a look at what happened.
- [01:02]
Shemitah Basu
Speaking on his daughter in law Lara Trump's show on Fox Saturday, President Trump recalled his memories of the day.
- [01:09]
Donald Trump
Well, it was unforgettable. I didn't know exactly what was going on. I got whacked, there's no question about that. And fortunately got down quickly. People were screaming and I got down quickly, fortunately, because I think they shot eight bullets and one got me.
- [01:29]
Shemitah Basu
He also praised the Secret Service sniper who killed Crooks from a distance almost immediately after he had opened fire. The shooting shaped the rest of the campaign. Trump's bloodied face and single fist up in the air remains one of its most defining images and continues to be a rallying cry for his base. But it's also come to represent a day of failure for the Secret Service. The Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released an updated report on Sunday describing it as a preventable tragedy and one that revealed a disturbing pattern of communication failure and negligence.
- [02:05]
Carol Lennig
The Secret Service failed miserably in a way that was visceral to the country and a shock to the system.
- [02:14]
Shemitah Basu
That's Carol Lennig, investigative reporter at the Washington Post, who's written a lot about the assassination attempt and the various investigations from the Senate, House and Secret Service.
- [02:24]
Carol Lennig
On that day, they were treating Donald Trump, a former president, as sort of a also ran candidate for a campaign event that they were just ticking off their list. And what each of these reports consistently finds is that the service failed to communicate on that day properly with with all of the local police that were around the site, some of whom were noticing that Thomas Crooks, a strange man, was clambering onto a roof and had.
- [02:51]
Shemitah Basu
A gun beyond communications. Lennox told us that the second failing was in securing the building Crooks used to take aim.
- [02:58]
Carol Lennig
A man got onto a roof that is a billboard for potentially killing Donald Trump. It's a screaming sight that says, I'm 150 yards from the stage and this is a place someone could kill the candidate. I remember interviewing a local counter sniper for a police unit who said to me, ma', am, your grandmother could have killed Donald Trump from that barn roof.
- [03:25]
Shemitah Basu
The Senate's latest report was also critical of what it describes as limited accountability within the Secret Service. The director at the time, Kimberly Cheadle, resigned in the days after the incident, But CNN reports that only six people were ultimately suspended, information the service handed over only under threat of subpoena. In his Saturday interview, President Trump told Fox News he was satisfied with the report's conclusions. As for Crooks, investigators have spent months attempting to work out a motive. He was shot dead at the scene and left no note or manifesto. In her reporting, Leonig reveals that just days before the Butler rally, the FBI had warned the Secret Service of a plot backed by Iran to kill Trump. Following the shooting, the FBI underwent months of painstaking work and hundreds of interviews. But in the end, Crooks was eventually determined to be acting alone, not with the Iranians. He was seemingly another socially isolated young man whose Internet history suggested serious mental health problems. The assassination attempt, Leonig says, continues to be a symbolic day for Trump's supporters and one that Trump himself has described as a turning point for him.
- [04:36]
Carol Lennig
So many people in the MAGA movement believe that he was saved by divine intervention and that he is a unique and special candidate here to save America. And that is their strong belief.
- [05:00]
Shemitah Basu
Let's turn now to the aftermath of the floods in Texas and new reporting about the federal government's response. A number of officials within fema, which is run by the Department of Homeland Security, told CNN that bureaucratic obstacles delayed the ability for the agency to respond immediately. Specifically, they point to a rule that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem imposed where every proposed contract and grant over $100,000 needs her personal sign off. Officials told CNN that that amount of money is effectively pennies in comparison to the billions that are often spent by FEMA on disaster relief. The they said that FEMA would have typically staged urban search and rescue crews from teams across the country in the disaster area in Central Texas right away. But CNN reporting claims Noem didn't authorize the deployment of the teams until Monday, which was more than 72 hours after the flooding began. Noem confirmed that she signs off on contracts exceeding this cost, but denied it had led to any delays. On NBC's Meet the Press yesterday.
- [06:03]
Kristi Noem
I was there that very morning and that afternoon that when the flooding was happening and was with those emergency responders right away, with the governor, with Nim Kidd who's running the state's response. And every one of them will tell you that they got everything that they needed when they asked for it immediately.
- [06:20]
Shemitah Basu
She also told Fox that 700 FEMA staff were on the ground within hours of a call with Texas officials. But CNN reports that FEMA had deployed only 86 of its own people by Monday. The that number increased to 311 by Tuesday. One state level official told CNN that interactions with FEMA have been the same as usual for disasters like this. Separately, the New York Times reported that two days after the floods began in Texas, FEMA did not answer almost two thirds of calls that came into its disaster assistance line. That, the report says is because the agency laid off contractors after their contracts expired on July 5, the day after flooding began and were not renew. Noem similarly denied this report in the interview with NBC.
- [07:08]
Kristi Noem
I'm not certain it's accurate and I'm not sure where it came from. And the individuals who are giving you information out of fema, I'd love to have them put their names behind it because the anonymous attacks to politicize this situation is completely wrong. I care these emergencies need to be conducted exactly how President Trump handled this one.
- [07:27]
Shemitah Basu
The focus on FEMA resourcing comes as there are major questions surrounding its future. In the past, both Trump and Noem have expressed a desire to abolish the agency entirely, moving the burden of relief onto states. Noem and administration officials have since shifted that position and spoken more about reforming FEMA and empowering states to lead their response more. On Sunday, Noem said Trump did not want FEMA to cease operation, but that the organization would be remade. But Deanne Criswell, the former FEMA administrator in the Biden administration, told CNN that any reforms that downsize the federal rule could impact states that lack experience in managing disaster.
- [08:08]
Deanne Criswell
When we look at a state like Texas, the most capable state probably in the country, that also needed to ask for assistance first through state to state mutual aid and then fema if they need that kind of assistance, what is that going to say for every other state or small jurisdiction out there when they have a big event and they don't have the federal government that they're used to depending on? We can't ask states to replicate everything that the federal government can provide.
- [08:46]
Shemitah Basu
Now to new developments in a crime that gripped the nation back in the early 2000s, the disappearance and murder of Lacey Peterson, a California woman who was Eight months pregnant at the time. Her husband Scott was convicted in 2004, and he's been serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. But today, there's an effort underway by the LA branch of the Innocence Project to get him a new trial. Los Angeles Times reporter Harriet Ryan told us about the case the group is building.
- [09:14]
Harriet Ryan
This tiny organization started looking at the evidence, and eventually they just became convinced that he was in fact innocent. And they're not like, revisiting that the what he raised at trial or things that have come up in intervening years. They're looking at things that they can turn up now.
- [09:29]
Shemitah Basu
But before we get into the new evidence they say they've discovered, let's first quickly go through some of the evidence that led to Peterson's conviction. Lacey's body and the body of her unborn baby washed up separately on the shores of the San Francisco Bay, just a few miles away from where Peterson went fishing on Christmas Eve of 2002, the day Laci disappeared. She was missing for months before she was found. Peterson bought his fishing boat in early December, and on that very same day, a woman he'd been having an affair with said in testimony that he told them it would be his first Christmas alone since he'd lost his wife. While police were searching for Laci, prosecutors argued that Peterson acted suspiciously. He planned to sell their home. He turned their nursery into storage, and he traded in Laci's car, among other things. One of the main arguments in the prosecution's case centered on that fishing boat, which prosecutors say Peterson bought in secret so he could kill Laci and dispose of her body. But the LA Innocence Project analyzed handwritten notes from the Petersons home, which documented pricing for boat anchors. And they conclude Laci probably wrote those notes and Peterson probably did not. And the LA Innocence Project says there's another piece of evidence that suggests Peterson is innocent.
- [10:48]
Harriet Ryan
The age of the baby that died in her womb. At the trial, there was testimony that the baby had died in her womb on the last day that she was seen before she went missing. But the Innocence Project got a new expert, a Harvard medical doctor, a specialist in fetal size, to look at the evidence. And he came back and said, actually the baby lived at least five days and maybe as long as 13 days after Lacy Peterson went missing. And in that period, the Innocence Project says there's no way that Scott Peterson could have killed her because he was under police surveillance.
- [11:19]
Shemitah Basu
The LA Innocence Project has faced some backlash for taking on Peterson's case because he doesn't fit the mold of a typical client.
- [11:27]
Harriet Ryan
Most of the time in Innocence Project cases, they had a public defender. They didn't have like a big time defense like Peterson did, don't have any of his notoriety and didn't have any of his resources in terms of a family to help pay for his defense at the time of trial.
- [11:39]
Shemitah Basu
The attorney that represents the LA Innocence Project declined to be interviewed for Ryan's story, but the group's board chair told the Times he believes Peterson's case deserved their attention. The district attorney's office, meanwhile, says the original evidence against Peterson was overwhelming. Ryan says Peterson and the Innocence Project will take their case to court this summer and ask for an evidentiary hearing. The process could take years. Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. We're still learning new details about the June Air India flight that crashed and killed all but one of 242 people on board and 19 people on the ground. India's aircraft accident investigation Bureau says that both engines on the plane stopped receiving fuel shortly after takeoff, causing the plane to lose thrust and ultimately crash. Audio from the cockpit also indicates that the pilots were confused about why switches that control the fuel had been cut off. The switches have safeguards that are designed to keep them from being accidentally moved. The investigation is still in the early stages and likely won't be completed for more than a year. An update on the ICE raids on farms in Venturic County, California that we spoke about last week. One man, 57 year old Jamie Alanis Garcia, died after he fell off a roof amid the chaos. The Department of Homeland Security said he was not among those being pursued. Federal authorities said they detained 361 people, including 14 miners, in what sources told Fox was the largest single raid of the year. The Commissioner of U.S. customs and Border Protection, Rodney Scott, said the farm was now under investigation for child labor violations. Meanwhile, an LA judge issued restraining orders limiting the ability of enforcement agents to conduct these kinds of sweeping ra. The order prevents officials from detaining people without reasonable suspicion beyond race, ethnicity or occupation, and said detainees must be given access to legal counsel. And lastly, at Wimbledon, Jannik Sinner defeated Carlos Alcaraz to claim his first Wimbledon title and giving Alcaraz the first taste of final defeat after five Grand Slam wins. It was a rematch between the top two players in the world after an epic French Open final that Alcaraz won. Sinner is the first Italian player to win a Wimbledon title, and besides overcoming Alcaraz to do it, he also had to deal with a champagne cork landing on the court mid match. He was asked about it in an on court interview.
- [14:22]
Deanne Criswell
How was it having to avoid a champagne cork that came onto the court? Have you ever had to do that before?
- [14:29]
Donald Trump
No, only here in Wimbledon. But that's exactly, that's exactly why we love playing here.
- [14:34]
Shemitah Basu
So in the women's final on Saturday, IGA Swiatek easily defeated Amanda Anisimova. Six love, six love a double bagel to claim her first Wimbledon title and sixth overall Grand Slam. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the news app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. The Los Angeles Times takes a deep investigative look into how LA became the city with the highest homeless population of any place in America. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News plus narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.